


Nobody Likes Tech Support

by Cristin Anne (ladysorka), ladysorka



Category: National Treasure (2004 2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:12:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysorka/pseuds/Cristin%20Anne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysorka/pseuds/ladysorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riley didn't actually mean to get into the treasure hunting business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Likes Tech Support

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pie_is_good](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pie_is_good/gifts).



Riley Poole went to college to get his degree in computer science, fully intending to make his first million online by 22. Then the dot-com bubble peaked and burst 3 months before he graduated, so that plan was pretty much a bust. His friends that had graduated a year or two before him and were smart enough to pull out of the market fast were sitting on millions, and he was stuck working at Radio Shack while he shopped his resume around for yet another month, hoping for any takers.

The job he eventually found wasn't exactly about to fill his bank account either. In-house tech support for an insurance company was about the last job he would've chosen if he'd actually been given multiple options, but he hadn't. Somebody had to explain to Marcia in Accounting that her computer wouldn't work if it wasn't plugged in for the fifteenth time, and he guessed it was him. He was bored out of his mind by halfway through his first day.

By the end of his first week, Riley was spending company time using the company servers to hack into anything he could think of - even his fellow insurance tech guy, just for the hell of it. Which led to Fellow Tech Guy leaning around the wall separating their cubicles and saying "Dude, bored much?" Riley just shrugged.

"I'm trying to break into this seriously high tech security system, wanna help?" Fellow Tech Guy waved his hand at his own little windowless cubicle.

"It's not like I have anything better to do." For the next few hours, in between explaining to Jack in HR how his mouse worked (it required moving it) and telling Tom in Collections to please, please stop downloading porn on his work computer, he pointed out backdoors that Fellow Tech Guy missed and took over typing for him entirely when he was just being a moron. Two days later when the FBI came to work to arrest Fellow Tech Guy (real name Carl Duffy) for hacking into the Pentagon, Riley's "He did _what_?" was so honestly unfaked the FBI barely even questioned him. Apparently Carl never ratted him out for basically hacking into the Pentagon for him (he figured Carl wanted the credit for himself, and Riley couldn't blame him), because the FBI never came back.

His new Fellow Tech Guy was actually a Fellow Tech Girl named Janice who had bright pink spiked hair that he desperately wanted to know how she got past HR and was sarcastic and vaguely terrifying. She was not into hacking government systems, and after one day declared him "depressingly stereotypical, but slightly better than the rest of these mundanes." He quickly fell into a routine of answering stupid questions (if he ever actually met Marcia in Accounting, he was going to shake her), playing Quake with Janice while listening to her complain about her girlfriend, and writing stupid programs that did nothing much of anything. And for a little over a year, that was his life.

Everything changed one morning in April when, right after he was attempting to work Marcia through sending an email (again), someone knocked on the wall of his cubicle.

"Janice, I told you. I have no idea what Sheila... you're not Janice." Riley stared at the smiling, blond man who stood leaning against the wall of his cubicle. "Janice and I are the only people who ever come back here."

"Definitely not Janice." He grinned and held out a hand. Riley shook it. "Ian Howe."

"Uh, hi. Riley Poole. Is me. Is there a reason you're visiting geekland?"

"As a matter of fact, there is." Ian picked up a pen off Riley's desk and started fiddling with it. "An old acquaintance of yours who used to do some odd jobs for me now and then is no longer available, and when I asked him who he might recommend instead, your name come up."

Riley watched the pen move between Ian's fingers. "Jobs? What kind of jobs? And who?"

Ian set the pen back down and looked at him. "Carl Duffy."

"I am not hacking into the Pentagon for you. And no matter what he says, I didn't do it for him either."

Ian laughed. "Mr. Poole, I would never ask you to hack into the Pentagon. I just want to hire you to do a simple job for me, and if that goes well, I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine and talk about hiring you full time on a project I'm funding."

Riley looked at him suspiciously. "Okay, well. What's the job?"

Ian handed him a CD. "I'd like you to crack the encryption on this file on this disc. It's nothing illegal, I promise you. $500 just for looking at it."

"You could get software that'd do it for less than that."

"Yes, I could. But you can do it faster." Ian set a business card down on Riley's desk. "Hopefully I'll see you later, Mr. Poole." Ian gave him another smile, and walked down the hall and out the door.

"Okay, that was weird." Riley looked down at the CD and shrugged. He could really use the money, and it couldn't hurt anything just to look at it. Plus, it's not like he actually needed to pay attention to most of the morons he worked with to give them tech support. He put the disc into the tray and got to work.

The encryption was extremely simple and he had it decoded in less than an hour. It was almost ridiculous. But when he opened the file that he'd just gained access to, he laughed out loud. It said nothing more than "Congratulations, you're in. Meet my associate and me for dinner at Andre's at 8th and Washington at 7:15. -Ian Howe"

Riley showed up five minutes early, and Ian and his friend were already standing in the lobby. "Ah, Mr. Poole. I'm glad you made it." Ian grinned at him. "This is my good friend, Ben Gates."

"Hi, nice to meet you. And call me Riley. Please, please call me Riley." Riley reached out to shake Ben's hand.

Ben took it. "Good to meet you, Riley."

"So what's this all about, anyway?" Riley had to admit, he was almost beyond curious now.

"I think that can wait until we're seated." Ian gestured to the waiting maitre'd.

After they'd ordered and the ridiculously expensive bottle of Merlot Ian selected had been poured, Riley couldn't handle the wait. "So."

"So," Ian said. "I think this is really Ben's area of expertise."

"Oh, thank you, Ian. Give me the hard part." Ben took a sip of his wine. "How much do you know about the Freemasons?"

"The Freemasons? Not a lot, but some of the guys on my Area 51 gossip list are really into them." Riley waved a hand in the air. "You get conspiracy osmosis."

Ben nodded. "I don't know anything about Area 51, but the Freemasons were a secret organization formed from the remnants of the Knights Templar in order to protect a great treasure. A treasure I have a key to finding."

"A treasure? How big of a treasure are we talking here?" Riley asked.

"Big. Very, very big. The Knights Templar believed it was too big for any one man, even for a king." Ben seemed almost as if he was quoting scripture.

"Okay. Treasures are good, I like treasures. Especially big ones. But why do you need me?" Riley fiddled with his wine glass.

"The clue we have led me to the HMS Charlotte, which left Boston on August 15th, 1776, and was lost at sea sometime in December of that same year. We need you to write a program leading us to where she most likely sank, using weather data and shipping routes we'll provide you. It'll be a full time job. Can you do that?" Ben looked him right in the eye, and Riley thought he could like this guy.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I can." Riley grinned.

Two years later, as he pulled on a heavy duty winter boot to go look for a ship in the arctic ice - a ship that he'd found, because he was _awesome_ \- Riley broke a shoelace.


End file.
